ISAA National Conference will take place on 24 & 25 October 2024 at the National Library of Australia. The theme this year is: A search for our soul: the Commonwealth 1901-1970.

By the end of the 1970s Australia was quite a different nation from  that formed in 1901 when the separate Colonies came together to form a Commonwealth. In 1901 there was little recognition of Indigenous Australians and their long history; in most States women did not have the vote or the opportunity to hold a political office; and it was assumed the Governor General would be a British aristocrat.

At the same time the late nineteenth century there was already a national identity expressed in the arts and political discourse about representative government, but it was in the first seventy years of the twentieth century that these concepts became integrated into our social and political institutions. 

Over the same period this process of integration was further  informed by our increasing awareness of our Indigenous past and  by momentous changes in the outside world.

The ISAA National Lecture at 5:30 on Thursday 24 October will be presented by Manning Clark biographer Mark McKenna is titled ‘History and the future Commonwealth: Manning Clark’s vision of Australia 1962-1991’.

Download attached PDF for details of program and pricing.